Alex Reynard
The Library
Alex Reynard's Online Books
PART 57
"Oogly woogly."
Toby made a noise with a lot of 'n' sounds, then rolled over and found himself face-to-face with a very large scorpion.
Its head was as big as a cow's. Dozens of glistening black eyes. Pincers like onyx arrowheads.
Toby's eyes got very big but he kept himself from screaming. It didn't take long to realize that the scorpion was not moving. Because it was only a severed head, held at eye level by Gilla-Gilla. Toby gave the porcupine a severely unamused look.
Gilla-Gilla smiled with approval that Toby hadn't caterwauled and leapt for the ceiling. He dropped the bug head with a wumph and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Chow's on, Van Winkle." Then he disappeared into the kitchen.
Toby rubbed gunk from his eyes. What time was it? He tried to focus on the windows. There were almost no lights in the house aside from the bare bulb above the dining room. Lively conversation and good smells came from that direction. Outside there was no more sun, but floodlights in the yard kept the whole perimeter starkly visible. Toby could see falling ash dancing in the light beams.
He sat up. His fur stuck to his clothes. He'd been snoozing with his face buried in the corner of the sofa, which left lines on his cheek.
It wasn't exactly a good sleep. He felt more wobbly than rested, but otherwise close to normal. And when he ran his fingers through his fur, all the cuts from that damn spiky bush had vanished. 'That's good.' Standing up with a yawn and a stretch, he headed for the source of the dinnersmells, careful not to touch anything along the way.
He stopped when he saw the table. 'What the heck happened while I was in dreamland?'
The primary cause of this reaction was seeing Piffle at the table, laughing and smiling and looking completely at ease. Gilla-Gilla had won her over somehow. Zinc was ferrying dishes to the table, Junella was sampling wine, and Doll was seated beside Piffle. Plus the nearest window was open with George's head poking through. Toby wondered if Zinc had forced Gilla to let them in, or if the porcupine had decided on his own. If he had, that might explain Piffle's turnaround.
Gilla-Gilla shoveled up a heaping plate of food and carried it over to the window. He was cautious about setting it down within range of George's teeth, but nodded when he saw that the equine backed up nonthreateningly. "Eat up," Gilla said, and went back to the table. He tossed a glance Toby's way and kicked a chair out for him.
Another surprise for Toby was the sheer amount of food on the table. Either Gilla-Gilla had a lot of leftovers laying around, or he'd whipped up a Thanksgiving-sized feast in just a few hours.
Gilla noticed the mouse's goggle-eyed stare at the spread. "Boring out 'ere. Not much to do but clean and cook."
"You sure do, Mr. Gilla! This is a swell spread!" Piffle licked her lips and tucked a napkin into her collar.
He smiled hugely at that. Once Toby was seated, Gilla darted around the table, insisting on serving everyone. He measured out perfect portions of this and that. All of it steaming hot, bursting with color, and radiating tantalizing aromas.
Toby re-noticed Gilla's habit of always looking past whatever was in front of him. The way his head twitched towards sounds none of the others could hear. Toby's more-awake mind realized this might not be a sign of distraction, but the opposite. Maybe the porcupine was a living radar dish, never ceasing to check his perimeter for trouble.
Toby scooted his chair up beside Junella. She asked, "How was your nap?"
He liked that she wasn't teasing, merely asking. "Good. I think I needed it."
"Adrenaline's like borrowing energy from your future," she quoted from somewhere. Then turned her attention to her plate and nudged some things around with her fork. "Allright, GG, I gotta know. What is this you're feeding us?"
He looked like he'd been dying for someone to ask. He glanced quickly at all exits and windows, then pointed to each dish in turn. "Spinach salad. Bacon biscuits. Rattlesnake curry. Scalloped potatoes. Hypena kidney sausages. Cactusyote slices. Raisin buns. Cheesy mac. And our centerpiece: butter-baked scorpion tail."
As he said that last item, he leered directly at Toby, anticipating the newbie mouse's response.
Admittedly, some of that sounded delicious and some of it sounded nauseating. But Toby's nose and stomach cast the deciding vote in favor of being bold. There was a little of everything on his plate anyway, so he speared a forkful of scorpion. "At least this explains where the head came from." He put it in his mouth, trying not to show his hesitation. Gilla-Gilla surely would have gotten all the venom out of it first, right?
Buttered fireworks melted in Toby's mouth.
Gilla-Gilla grinned at seeing the mouse's eyebrows shoot up. "Like lobster, innit?"
Toby swallowed, then couldn't speak for a few seconds. "If that's what lobster tastes like, I'm sorry I've never had it before! That was incredible!!"
Gilla's expression was that of a champion golfer after sinking a hole in one. He finally let himself sit and begin his own meal, and that signaled the others to do the same.
No one could deny that it was the best meal they'd had since the start of their journey. This was why Phobiopolans still cultivated ingredients. With imaginite, the food was only ever as good as the imaginer's memory. As delicious as that might be, it was never unexpected. Gilla's food was unexpected. The recipes were simple, nothing unnecessary in any of them, but also nothing overcooked or underdone. These were straightforward dishes, made by someone with enough practice to no longer need measuring cups. Gilla simply knew how each one was supposed to taste, and made it taste that way.
Doll could not eat, but was happy enough savoring the smells. Piffle was ravenous and did her best to keep her food in her mouth and off her clothes. Zinc didn't care. He ignored his silverware, ate with his wrenches, and talked constantly. Junella's table manners were no better. Soon enough they were both reminiscing with Gilla over past jobs, cackling. At one point Gilla-Gilla used his fingers to mime a furson marching along stiffly, then seeing a second finger-furson, throwing something at them with his thumb-arm, and the second one kicking it back, causing it to explode with a "bwooosh!". This was somehow so hilarious that Zinc and Junella were both pounding the table with tears in their eyes.
Toby had very little idea what they were talking about, but the food made him not care. He found he couldn't help feeling sorry for his former self, the one who'd been living off thin soup and applesauce. That wasn't living. Not without food like this. He did his best to be brave and try everything. Most of it was excellent, though the kidney sausages took him a few swallows to appreciate. The cactusyote was crispy on the outside and had the cool crunch of cucumber in the middle. Lovely and refreshing. The biscuits were fluffy as pillows. The macaroni and cheese was gooey, warm, and comforting. The scorpion tail was cooked so soft it almost slid down his throat without chewing. The salad and potatoes brought up dim memories of long-ago dinners with extended family. About the only thing he didn't care for was the rattlesnake curry, and only because it was too hot for his tongue.
Gilla-Gilla paused in guffawing at Junella's retelling of the sad fate of the EC safe deposit box bandit, noticing how Toby was off in a world of his own. The mouse was silently evaluating everything on his plate and looking at a loss for words to describe them. To Zinc, Gilla asked, loud enough to be overheard, "So, you a fibber? You said this one's scared of his own shadow. Thought I'd have a picky eater, 'fraid to eat nightmares."
Toby did overhear. "They're a lot less scary when they're cooked," he quipped, and took a bite.
This brought a chuckle to the table and Gilla raised his coffee to the mouse.
Toby had never been toasted before, so it took him a second to realize it. He clinked his milk against Gilla's mug.
Zinc spied the mouse's nearly-untouched curry. "You, uh, gonna finish that?" he asked eagerly.
"No, go right ahead! It's good but I can't handle it."
"Muchas gracias, señor!" Zinc said and bulldozed it onto his plate. He wolfed the spicy stuff down like it was oatmeal.
More talk, more eating. All of them had seconds of something or other. Eventually there came a polite throat-clearing from behind them. "Might I request a few more of those magnificent sausages?" George asked.
Gilla hardly glanced up. "Come and get 'em yourself."
George thought that was a bit brusque, then realized what had actually been said. He had been invited in. In disbelief, he cocked his head. "You aren't worried I'll disrupt your possessions?"
Still chewing, Gilla shook his head: 'naw'.
George carefully held his empty plate between his teeth and eased a foreleg through. He was pleasantly stunned for a second time. Hours earlier, Gilla had abruptly, mid-sentence, loped over to slide up the window. Without knowing how, he and Doll had passed the test.
It is not an easy thing for a horse to fit through a window. But not having a lot of flesh to get in the way helps. Gilla nodded to see that George was extremely mindful of his size as he maneuvered around the piles of boxes.
Piffle waved him over and was happy to refill his plate with whatever he pointed out. "Oh! I forgot to ask before, George. What were you 'n Doll getting up to on the porch all that time?"
"We had a long and rewarding chat about our respective pasts, before we ended up in our current forms. I feel I understand Madam Doll far better now. Her life has not been an easy one."
Piffle looked to the little faceless toy sitting beside her. She reached out to pat her shoulder. "I hope you'll tell me too someday."
A nod. Piffle felt writing in her palm: W-H-E-N-T-H-E-R-E-S-T-I-M-E
The seven of them continued to work away at the massive mountains of food still on the table. The bacon biscuits went extinct first, followed soon by the sausages. George ate twenty. He apologized the whole time and said he just couldn't help himself. Gilla said he'd rather have appreciation than leftovers.
As the evening wore on and the food dwindled down to just a few blobs in serving dishes that everyone was too full to touch, the topic of conversation turned to Phobiopolan current events. Zinc and Junella asked Gilla-Gilla everything about his half of the world, while he asked everything about theirs. Piffle and George supplied anecdotes as well. Toby had nothing to add to the discussion so he politely listened while drawing designs with his fork in his gravy. He tried his best to keep up, but a lot of the people, places and words just sounded like gibberish to him.
Still, it was nice to rub his hands up and down his taut, round belly and think fond thoughts about all the amazing food inside. He couldn't help but wonder what Gilla-Gilla would whip up from all that convorine meat laying outside.
Hours passed. The pace of conversation slowed, punctuated by burps. Everyone was feeling warmly dozy from the giant meal, and everyone had also noticed the clock on the wall. No one wanted to be the first to bring up bedtime, but eventually Gilla-Gilla accepted his duties as host and mentioned he had a bunch of surplus sleeping bags in the corner they could use for the night.
There was a bare space in the middle of the house. While everyone else got up to stretch, Gilla padded back and forth between his storage crates. He laid out the six bags in a circle on the floor. They didn't look like the most comfortable things in the world, but they did look clean and durable.
Piffle counted them and furrowed her brow. "Aren't you sleeping too?" she asked Gilla-Gilla.
He scooted forward a folding chair. "More used to kippin' in one of these."
"If you say so. Doesn't look too comfy to me," she said with concern.
He shrugged. "Dishes first anyway. Tire me out some."
Toby settled into his bag and really wished he'd been awake to see whatever had changed the frosty atmosphere between Piffle and Gilla earlier.
George said he was perfectly fine lying on the floor, and worried he'd annihilate any sleeping bag he tried to get himself into. Doll let Piffle know she was fine with them doubling up. This left two extra bags. Zinc remembered from last time that the zippers on the bags went all the way around. He unzipped both, like sliding apart sandwiches, and now everyone had something to roll up for a pillow. Piffle gave him a kiss for his cleverness.
Soon everyone was settling in, getting as comfortable as the hard floor would allow. The already-dim house went even darker as Gilla-Gilla turned off the bulb above the dinner table, leaving himself only a small candle to wash dishes by. He shouted over his shoulder that he'd join them in a tic.
Toby listened to the shuffling, whooshy sounds of everyone's sleeping bags rustling. It was a puffy, waterproof fabric that felt a bit like being inside a bouncy castle. He didn't really think he could get to sleep again after his crash on the couch earlier. But in the soft dark, listening to the breathing of his friends with a stuffed tight tummy, his body slowed and his mind drifted into relaxation.
***
The dream was vague but feral. Menacing. The kind of slow horror that never shows its face, but stalks at the edges of one's vision until the heart can't stand to beat any faster.
Something wrong was following him. He had no idea where he was or why he was alone. He seemed to be in a doctor's waiting room as large as a gymnasium. Something hideous plodded slowly in the unseen, never nearer than behind the last closed door, but always there. Always. Toby did not think it was merely hungry. He thought it pursued him for the sport of cruelty.
He tripped. His palms skidded on the slick tile floor. He heard footsteps break into a run just behind him.
Then he was awake.
Unlike the movies, he did not spasm upright while clutching at his bedsheets and screaming. Reality simply slapped him across the muzzle and brought him back to awareness. He could feel sweat in his fur and tension in his muscles. The dream was already erasing itself from his memory, but feelings of unfairness and helplessness lingered.
He opened his eyes and couldn't see anything. It was as dark as when he'd been in the ash-blower airlock. Gilla-Gilla must have shut off all the lights when he went to bed.
No. He would have at least seen moonlight.
Toby could hear his own breathing. He suddenly knew with absolute certainty that he was in a small, narrow, enclosed space. Almost exactly the length and width of his own body.
'I'm in a coffin.'
Suddenly all his half-kidding thoughts about Gilla-Gilla being a serial killer roared back into focus. That nutcase porcupine had trapped him in a coffin! Everyone else too, probably. The crazy bastard had stuffed them full of food and then trapped them so he could roast them alive. Just like Hansel and Gretel. Toby thought he was probably on a conveyor belt headed for a wide-mouthed oven right now.
'Stop panicking,' he ordered himself. 'That'll just use up all your oxygen. You don't know what's outside this box. But you do know that, whatever it is, it's better than staying in here. Besides, you have a hammer. He doesn't know that. At least, I don't think he knows. Unless Zinc told him. Dammit. Either way, you can still feel it right there in your arm like always, so if you want out, all you have to do is jackhammer the lid up. Simple. Easy. Nothing to worry about.'
Except there was plenty to worry about. Like what awaited him outside. Gilla-Gilla might have been right there waiting for him. With cooking utensils.
Toby forced himself to take long, slow, deep breaths. Freaking out wasn't going to help him escape. Silently, just in case anyone outside was listening, he withdrew his right arm from the sleeping bag and touched his palm to the coffin lid, getting ready to-
'This is cardboard.'
His fear fell over sideways with a fart sound. The texture was unmistakable: plain corrugated cardboard. Toby pushed lightly and light crept in beside him. There wasn't even any bottom on this box! It was just placed over top of him like a butter dish.
For a moment Toby was overwhelmed by confusion. Then irritation struck him. 'If this is another one of Gilla's 'tests', I'll...'
He tilted the box up just enough to see outside. There were three other boxes surrounding him, all covering up his snoring companions. And there in the center was Gilla-Gilla, slumped in his folding chair. Amazingly, his goggles were off. And the floodlights from outside made it immediately and unmistakably clear that the poor bastard had suffered a stroke.
Panic punched Toby in the chest again. He had no idea how to handle a situation like this. Sure, he knew all the signs of a stroke, but not what to do if you're staying in someone's house and they have one out of nowhere. He doubted very much that Phobiopolis had 911. His brain shuffled through all his stored medical trivia, trying to recall what to do in this situation. 'I should check if he's responsive first. Or even breathing. And I'll definitely wake the others.' Then what?
"Can't sleep?"
The question was a whisper, but Toby was so tightly wound it sounded like a gunshot. The mouse squeaked and the edge of the box fell on his forehead. He scuttled out from beneath it and looked at Gilla-Gilla.
The porcupine’s entire left side was drooping limp: arm, leg, facial skin. But the other half of him seemed as alert as ever. "Gave you a fright?"
Toby kept his voice down, not wanting to wake anyone else. "Yes!!" he hissed. "I thought you'd had a stroke! What the hell happened to half of you!?"
He chortled silently. "Flamingos sleep like this, one side at a time. Keep the other eye open all night."
Toby did not have to ask for explanation. Gilla really didn't ever relax. "Okay, so what are the boxes for? That scared the hell out of me too!" It was hard to keep his voice at a whisper when he wanted to shout in exasperation.
Gilla-Gilla actually looked puzzled. "You ain't been anyplace wi' footbugs yet?"
"Oh." Toby remembered back to the Tatterdemalion and the Sleepateria. The little slippers to keep out the insects with the corkscrew noses.
Gilla-Gilla put a hand on his hip. "All my 'ospitality, and this is the thanks I get?"
Toby laughed weakly. The whole bizarre situation was starting to get funny.
Gilla yawned. He stretched both arms out wide, then the right one went slack, along with the corresponding leg and eye. At the same time, his left side woke up, fresh and chipper.
"That's kinda creeping me out," Toby admitted.
Gilla checked every window in his field of vision. He cocked his ear for a moment before answering, "There's a reason, yah. Can you keep secrets?"
Toby sat up cross-legged. He was intrigued. "Certainly."
Gilla seemed to get even jumpier than normal. He licked his lips. "Z and J know. Not many else. See... I've never died 'ere."
Toby was shocked. "Never? Really? Heck, even I have! Several times. It's not even all that scary anymore."
Gilla shook his head (or tried to with his neck partly inert). "S'not fear."
The mouse's expression asked for an explanation.
Gilla-Gilla sighed and woke the other half of himself up. Might as well at this point. He scanned the windows again. "You noticed. I don't make eye contact and I talk fast. Hard to talk and listen at the same time. Same for focus." He spread his arms, indicating the surrounding forest. "Anyfing could kill me. Right now, might. 'Cept I stay rabbit and they don't get the chance."
It seemed crazy to Toby. "But dying isn't permanent here. You wouldn't be losing anything. And it seems like you put unimaginable effort into something you don't need to worry about. I mean, if a fraidy cat like me can-"
Gilla-Gilla shook his head in exasperation. "Could, sure. But I 'aven't." He said this last word with great emphasis.
And all of a sudden, Toby got it. "...It's just to see how long you can keep the streak going, isn't it? It's the challenge."
The porcupine grinned, and pointed like Toby had gotten a charades clue right on the nose.
Toby pondered this. He remembered his own time in the cave, trying to keep himself out of danger for so long. But that was pure survival instinct. Gilla-Gilla knew better. He was driven by competition with himself. "So why out here? Marasmus? If the challenge is to keep alive as long as possible, wouldn't it be easier in one of the cities?"
"Too easy," Gilla said straightaway.
"Ah. Like playing basketball with a ten-foot net."
Gilla nodded his head like it might fall off, clearly delighted that someone was actually comprehending.
"So then..." Toby thought maybe he shouldn't ask, but he couldn't resist. "What happens if you slip up? Or just get unlucky? What happens if the streak ends?"
"Not 'if'. When." Gilla-Gilla corrected.
Toby was surprised to see him acknowledge the inevitable futility of his little game.
He shrugged. "Guess I'll just set up somewhere else. Start ova." He looked off into the far distance. "Polycoria's nice, sposto be."
"If I remember the name, that place is crawling with Bozos on motorcycles."
A grin. "Sounds fun to kill."
Toby felt like he suddenly understood exactly why Zinc liked this guy so much.
An amusing whim came over Gilla-Gilla. He patted his thighs and stood up. Angling a bizarre little smile at Toby, he jerked his head to indicate that the mouse should follow along as he stepped past the snoozing cardboard boxes and headed for the airlock.
Toby stood up, unsure. Go out into the open? In the middle of the night? With a guy he'd barely even met? 'Well, everyone else is sleeping right here if I need them,' he reasoned.
Plus, he was wide awake now. He doubted if his brain would let him go back to sleep even if he tried.
Grimacing a little, he crossed the room and steeled himself to step out into the chilly Marasmus night.
***
Gilla-Gilla geared up. He slipped on his bulletproof vest and settled his folded guillotine weapon into its sheath. (Toby did have to admit, he was curious about how the porcupine used that thing). Gilla put his goggles back on, added a fresh respiratory mask, then offered one to Toby. Despite bringing back unpleasant memories, Toby decided they were better than getting ash up his nose.
Through the airlock and into the night. It had been 'snowing' the entire time they'd been inside, so the drifts on the porch were deep enough to cover the tops of Toby's sandals. The clearing around the house was a solid grey blanket, and more ash kept coming down. Toby was glad for his mask. "That stuff's not... poisonous, is it?"
Gilla-Gilla was staring off into the forest. He replied without looking. "Nah. Just sicka tastin' it."
Toby watched the stuff flutter down through the floodlights. "Where does it all come from?"
A shrug and an 'I dunno' grunt.
Toby looked across the 'lawn'. He could see occasional footprints and scorch marks from where the automatic defenses had crisped curious critters. The floodlights were strong enough to pierce several feet through the trees at the edge of the forest. "So what'd you wanna show me out here?"
"Show you? Ha! Thought we'd get some early morning training for you, bruv." He rustled the mouse's shoulder encouragingly.
"What?"
Gilla walked forward, then cupped his hands to his mouth and ululated a short series of tones.
At this command, all the little green lights in the clearing turned dark.
Toby jumped back against the door. "No way! Not okay! Turn them back on! I can't fight off a whole forest full of monsters!"
Gilla-Gilla's smirk extended past the corners of his mask. "Easy now! I'm not 'tirely mental, innit?" He gestured for his guest to look a little closer.
Toby'd only thought all the lights had gone out. Actually, most of them were still on. But there was a cone-shaped section leading right up to the porch that was now unguarded. Not quite as impossible to deal with as nightmares charging in from all sides. Toby still radiated unease. "I wish you'd asked me first."
"How often do they?" Gilla replied, pointing towards the forest.
And yes, Toby could already see flashing yellow eyes out there, sliding back and forth between the trees. He opened his palm up. He wished he had his bracers on. Only now that it was too late did he remember slipping them off before his couch nap earlier.
Gilla-Gilla saw the cactusyote prowling closer. He saw Toby's body language screaming, 'I DO NOT LIKE THIS SITUATION'. And yet, he also saw that the mouse had his weapon hand ready.
Toby drew in quick, sharp breaths though his paper mask as he watched a green, scraggly beast approaching. It was covered in spines and larger than a police dog. Its eyes were locked onto Toby's. Its steps were slow, one paw in front of the other, as it assessed the situation.
"I'm right 'ere if things go berserko," Gilla-Gilla said, emphasizing the point by swinging his weapon off his back and into his hand. It went K-KLAK as it unfolded. He patted Toby's shoulder and gave him a nudge forward. "G'wan. Take 'im out."
Toby stumbled down the porch steps, wincing all the way. He felt the ash crush and crackle under his soles. The cactusyote was getting closer and its stride was getting bolder. Toby held out his hammer arm like a cannon and cupped his wrist to steady it. His teeth were rattling.
'It's just a big dog. With spikes. You've dealt with convorines and biteranodons and security guards by now. I can handle this, right? Maybe Gilla knew what he was doing, bringing me out here.'
Just behind him, the porcupine watched.
Ahead, banana-yellow eyes swirled in deep green sockets. The cactusyote had a lot more confidence than the trembling mouse it was stalking. A tongue like a sweat sock dangled from its dripping jaws.
The creature broke into a run. Toby fought the urge to flee. Everything in his body was telling him to turn and bolt for the door, run in and slam it behind him. 'No,' he told himself firmly. 'Hold your position.' That was what soldiers said on TV. Hold your position in the face of the enemy. He could see his arm quaking as he pointed it towards the charging beast.
It growled, lips drawn back in a sneer of hunger. Its body was mostly plant, but its shining teeth were ivory.
Toby ordered his arm to stay still. The thing was getting closer and closer. Just feet away now. He aimed straight for the head.
He did not expect it to jump.
In a green flash, the cactusyote was airborne, lunging at Toby's face.
Toby yanked his arm up in an arc. The instant he felt something touch his palm, he let his hammer go.
Gilla-Gilla's jaw dropped as he watched the cactusyote's skull tear straight through its face and go sailing towards the moon.
The lifeless green body collapsed in the ash at Toby's feet. The mouse was stricken, wide-eyed, frozen. But still clutching his arm.
Gilla-Gilla hopped down from the porch and ran over to him. "That was brilliant! Your arm's a bloody shotgun, fam!"
"Ow," Toby whimpered. He lowered his arm, revealing a cactusyote spine piercing straight through the palm and out the other side.
Gilla yanked it out.
Toby yodeled.
"Not a bad outcome, eh?"
His hand did sting quite intensely. He guessed there was something on the creature's spines similar to capsaicin. Gilla would have mentioned if it was poisonous, surely. Though, all things considered, the cactusyote was incredibly dead and his hand merely hurt a bit. Not hard to see who the victor was here.
Gilla looked down at the corpse and grimace-grinned. Its face was split like a ripped Halloween mask. He punted the carcass over to where the active sensors would fry its ass if it tried to revive.
Toby looked around for any more threats. He saw a squad of terrorbunnies racing towards him. "Gilla..."
He nodded in an 'I see them' way. "Scavengers. Not a bovver 'less you step on one, so don't." His head swiveled at an angle. "That's a bovver."
The snarling bunnies ran right past Toby, headed for the cactusyote. Their intent was to rip it up like a car in a chop shop. Instead they all went poof, one by one. Toby looked around for whatever had alerted Gilla.
Then he saw it. Shoving trees out of the way as it lumbered out of the forest was a humongous scorpion. It scuttled towards the house on eight segmented legs. Nothing otherworldly about its appearance besides the fact that it was the size of a camper van.
It had Gilla-Gilla's full attention. "Same one we ate," he remarked. "Doesn't learn well."
"I can't possibly kill that thing!" Toby shrieked.
"Tha's right," Gilla said simply, and ran off towards it.
There was incredible confidence in the porcupine's pace. Zero fear. He had his double-bladed rhombus out and ready.
The gleaming black beast raised its pincers and readied its tail. Creamy yellow venom dripped from the hooked tip. Its mandibles released a hiss like a truck's air brakes.
Gilla-Gilla's speed remained steady. He saw everything. The tail, the mouth, the pincers. Black chitin reflected bright streaks from the floodlights.
The poison tail shot forward, quick as an arrow.
Gilla-Gilla was faster.
He kicked off from the ground and spun his weapon as hard as he could, performing a midair diagonal pirouette. The tailtip was sliced clean in half. Venom splashed from the flying chunks and sizzled against the ash.
A screech of unearthly pitch keened out of the creature. It swung its claw at Gilla-Gilla, but the porcupine danced away. Circled around. Made it work to keep up with him. He took another swing at its legs. The creature screeched again and stabbed its claw at the bouncing prey.
Gilla jumped and somersaulted. He swung the guillotine blade in an arc with himself as the fulcrum. The scorpion's claw cracked in half. Exoskeletal shards scattered.
Toby watched it all, stunned. Gilla-Gilla moved like a fish through water. Like a ribbon dancer, or a Wu Shu master. All of Gilla's attacks were based on circles. He compensated for his short size by putting as much momentum into his blades as possible, doubling or tripling the striking power. Whenever he hit, his feet were off the ground. His whole weight pushed strength through the weapon's handgrips, abetted by gravity.
The scorpion was pissed off now. It lashed its remaining claw back and forth, striking wildly. Gilla looked for an opening to break that off too.
Toby saw peripheral movement. Four or five new nightmares were wobbling onto the battlefield. He'd never seen this kind before. They were thumb-shaped heads with ridiculously huge mouths. Scampering around on tiny legs like an old-timey clawfoot bathtub. No eyes, no noses. Whatever the hell they were, Toby knew Gilla-Gilla did not need the distraction.
Incredibly, Gilla piped up with his back turned, "See 'em!?"
'How the hell could he hear them from thirty feet away while fighting a giant bug!?' Toby thought. "Yeah!"
Gilla slid sideways underneath another pincer swing. "Handle 'em?"
Toby set his jaw. The head-things didn't look so tough. "Yeah." Shoving down doubt, he ran forward.
The head things' attention had been on the porcupine, but when fresh meat made itself available...
Toby's breathing sped up when he saw all those gleaming chompers turn his way. He readied his hammer. Steadying it with his other hand had been a good idea, so he tried it again. He had only seconds to strategize, but he figured these things would definitely try to bite, so he should aim slightly higher than where their stubby, eyeless foreheads currently were.
His reasoning was good. When he got close enough for one of them to snap at him, he unleashed his steel with a POP! This sent his target flying backwards to crash into its kin. Toby was gobsmacked at his luck. The two heads landed in the ash piles upside down, their helpless little legs wiggling through the air.
Three more left. Toby didn't dare try for another perfect shot like that, so he popped his hammer out into his hand, got a solid grip, and swung away.
His teeth were gritted and his arm was stretched out as far as possible. He didn't want these little hopping horrors anywhere near his vital areas. The hammer felt like a natural part of his arm as he arced it around sideways at the closest head. A miss. The head hopped forward like an upsized wind-up chattery teeth. Toby retreated and swung at another one that was getting even closer. A hit! He heard and felt bone break. He didn't want to get too fancy, but he tried to emulate Gilla-Gilla's graceful circular motion as he turned with his last swing, creating momentum for another strike at another head. Bullseye! Right in the teeth! The impact jarred his arm as he felt the enamel smash. The head-thing tipped over, bleeding into the ash. Toby cracked the back of its skull open just to be sure.
The one he'd hit before now dove at his ankle. He pulled his foot away in time. It tried again to bite. Toby swung and bashed it down into the ground like a whack-a-mole game. One left. It charged at Toby, frothing at the mouth. Toby stood firm and brought his hammer straight down on its forehead, giving it a sudden, painful underbite.
Not leaving anything to chance, Toby doubled back to where the first two were still struggling in the ash. He thought they were perfect practice for his hammer cannon technique. Reaching carefully between those wriggling little vermin feet, he tensed his arm, released, and burst the first one like a watermelon.
He turned to do the same to the second, then an explosion of blood startled the hell out of him.
Like a spiked bomb going off, Gilla-Gilla had dispatched the remaining thumbhead with a flying quill-first headbutt.
Behind them the scorpion squirmed and squealed. Its legs and claws were lying in the ash, squirting out blueish blood. Even the tail had been surgically removed. The porcupine certainly had a thing for rendering his enemies crippled.
Gilla-Gilla uncurled and casually shook the blood and guts out of his hair, like a surfer flicking sea foam. "Eraserheads! Annoying, wot? Thanks for doin' 'em in."
The mouse flinched away from Gilla's gore shower. "You're welcome, and thanks for taking care of the scorpion."
He gave a 'that was nothing' shrug. "Sorry t'steal your last kill. Couldn't resist."
"I honestly do not mind," Toby replied. He looked around to the four messes he'd made. "I can hardly believe I did all this."
Gilla-Gilla pulled down his mask so Toby could see his smile. "You did tho'. Why d'you doubt yourself?"
His cheeks reddened. "I... I dunno. I don't have much practice at this. You're way better than me. I was just... reacting on instinct."
"Yeh. I saw." Gilla smiled more. "You're quick. You want the fight over ASAP. No little weak baby swings. You strike to kill. Headshots. No mercy. Good stuff."
"I... but..." Toby couldn't believe words like that ever describing him. Those were he-man, tough-guy type words. And he was just a little mouse, a tourist, a sickly...
'Wait a minute. I just killed four nightmares. Five, actually.' He remembered the cactusyote. 'And it wasn't even all that difficult. When he said I was good, why did my gut immediately start telling me the opposite?'
The evidence was bleeding right in front of him. He'd been making progress at construct-stompin' all this time. So why did he still doubt his skill? Why did he still think of himself primarily as helpless? He'd reflexively refused praise after the convorine battle as well. It was as if some whisper in the back of his mind wasn't allowing him to feel confidence. Had it been there all along?
He was onto something here.
Gilla-Gilla could see the kid was dealing with some real mental knots. He stepped over a dead head and cupped the mouse's shoulder. "Practice? Could use some. But there's talent there, swear."
The compliment made his stomach tense up. "I don't want to be talented at killing things."
Gilla-Gilla was unfazed. "That'll keep you from going too far."
Toby considered that.
The porcupine's head snapped towards the woods. "More."
Specifically, more cactusyotes. A pack of seven. They poured out of the woods like a single many-legged creature, drawn by the scent of meat. The first one had been a scout.
"Wanna go again?" Gilla asked with a smirk.
Toby was out of breath and his skin felt burning hot. "Hell no!"
Gilla read his body language up and down. "Yeah, you do."
***
Piffle was the first to rise the next morning. She was momentarily puzzled when her antennae encountered cardboard, but she was familiar enough with footbug protocol not to be alarmed. She sat up and yawned cutely. Doll was still asleep with her head resting on her folded hands, so Piffle was very careful as she slid herself out of the sleeping bag.
The hamsterfly stood and stretched and counted the other boxes. One of them was already tipped over and Gilla-Gilla's chair was empty. She looked around for him. Bathroom, maybe? She walked over to the window. The sun was up and she shielded her eyes from the brightness.
Blinking, she looked again.
She squeaked in alarm and ran at full speed towards the airlock.
As soon as it cycled her through, she dashed out onto the porch, shouting Toby's name.
The clearing in front of the cabin looked like a tomato sauce tsunami. Almost every inch of the ground was streaked red. Limbs and bones and other assorted nightmare bits were littered all around. Terrorbunnies were having a breakfast buffet. Off near the treeline, Gilla-Gilla was hacking away at another of those bulging hyena-ish animals.
Toby was closer to the porch, hammer clutched in his hand like it had fused with the bone. Blood covered him from toes to eartips. His eyes looked like they'd been nailed open. Red-ringed. He was panting, twitching, bouncing from foot to foot like a metronome.
When he heard her he whirled around faster than she would've thought possible, raising his hammer to attack.
She gasped and brought her paws up to her mouth.
Gore streaked his face. He recognized her and smiled obscenely. Like he'd ingested the world's entire supply of caffeine.
"HOW ARE YOU I'M FINE!!!"
***
Piffle was back to being miffed at Gilla-Gilla again for what he'd done to poor Toby's mind. But all throughout breakfast, the porcupine grinned and grinned, and kept glancing at the mouse like a proud stepdad.
Still twitching and fidgeting even after the others had led him inside and sat him down, Toby was literally tripping on adrenaline. The nightmares had just kept coming all night long. It was impossible to count the number of times he'd swung his hammer.
And yet, as wired and jittery as he still felt, he didn't feel traumatized. Gilla-Gilla had stayed close by all night. Toby remembered him calling out, "Your left!" or "Nice one!" or feeding him strategies for various construct breeds. The porcupine had not kicked him to the deep end to sink or swim. He'd kept his ear up for any of Toby's questions, until gradually, Toby stopped needing to ask them.
'I actually killed a hypena,' Toby remembered, still awestruck by that fact. Zinc had been right, they were easy as hell to distract. A simple feint with a shuriken, then pow! Right in the nose!
When Gilla set down breakfast, Toby tore into it like a chainsaw. Rashers of bacon, scrambled biteranodon eggs, hot biscuits, and wildberry jam. If anything could have brought him back down to earth, it was the comfort and pleasure of good food.
Gilla-Gilla was chattier than the others had seen him before. He eagerly described his and Toby's nighttime batting practice, relishing the details of their most spectacular moments. "And," he said with a bow towards the mouse, "your boy only died once." The others couldn't believe it for a moment, but then applauded the mouse vigorously. He blushed and smiled.
Toby hadn't even remembered that part until Gilla mentioned it. For almost all of the fight, Toby was either hitting with all he had or strategically retreating to a better position. That is, until a bonecuddy had backed him onto the porch and trampled his ribcage to splinters. Gilla-Gilla had rushed over to decapitate the bastard, then did the same for Toby to help get him back in the game.
George congratulated Toby too, but also pressed for details about the other nightmare horse.
"Nothing like you," Toby said without hesitation. He added that it had gotten the better of him for two reasons. One, because he was startled that its bones were pure white (forgetting that George had looked the same before his arcane incineration). And two, because he hesitated in hitting it. He did not need to say why. George looked at him with a mixture of apology and fidelity.
By now Gilla-Gilla didn't even twitch to look across his table and see a construct eating from his dinnerware. George had thoroughly convinced him of his good manners. Though Gilla did sometimes stare at the stallion, then look out the window to the forest, clearly wondering how the hell George could have gone from that to this.
Once the manic shine had gone from Toby's eyes, Piffle asked him how he was feeling. "Full," he said, and burped. This was very true, as he'd eaten twice as much breakfast as anyone else. The minor food-coma helped a lot to ease him back down. About the night's spectacular massacre, Toby told her it was already a blur. It had been a blur while it was happening too. He was running on reflexes almost the entire time. One monster became the same as any other. And somewhere along the way he lost his fear. There was only a feral awareness. Bad things were trying to hurt him and he had to stop them before they could. Looking back, he realized how awful it had felt. Like being a computer stripped down to its most basic programming, cut off from higher functions. But it had also been exhilarating. Intoxicating. He had never felt more fully connected with his body before. It was a feeling he understood how people could become addicted to. Because there had come a point during the night where everything had gotten... easy. He hadn't even noticed the change. Whatever had been holding him back before had somehow melted away. Toby was simply hitting without hesitation or doubt. Like dumbfounding. He didn't worry about whether his swings would connect, because they did. He was trusting in his natural skill. It was stunning to look back and realize that such actions had been buried inside him all this time.
The power was a feeling that, in the moment, had made him feel electric and alive. And now, part of him was excited by it and another was repulsed.
Eventually, with many questions, Piffle helped him figure out why.
His aversion was not to the power itself, but his awakening to the ease of causing injury and death. This became clear when he connected his feelings back to a memory from EC. A single swing had shattered the terrier's jaw. Barely an effort. The horror he'd felt in that instant was still creating echoes.
Toby thought of Rither. One bang on a sonic weapon and someone's life ended in a fall. Toby thought of how much damage one muskrat had done to a city with a single explosion. Causing pain was easy.
Piffle reminded him that he hadn't hurt anyone real last night. They were only monsters.
He asked, "What if someday I stop seeing a difference?"
She pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around his head. "The Toby I know is kind and gentle and thoughtful, and he'd always know better. No matter what."
Hearing that soothed him.
***
Eventually the talk around the table turned towards the topic of travel. Junella and Zinc both acknowledged that their upcoming destinations, Drapetomania and Borborygmus, were not the most dangerous places in Phobiopolis, but were still extremely irritating. Like Lumbago, both had the kind of endless nightmares and inhospitable terrain that made any journey a slog.
Gilla-Gilla asked why they didn't just skip them entirely. They glared at him for such an unhelpful suggestion. But he was serious. And then he realized he'd forgotten to tell them about the tub station.
He'd found it one morning while he was out gathering ingredients. He had a strict routine for this, in a very precise area that he tended not to venture beyond. But that morning he'd spotted some berry bushes (which produced the very jam they'd just eaten), and harvesting them had led him to a rusting bathtub in the middle of the forest. It was absolutely choked with weeds, barely recognizable at first. Ancient compared to most tub stations. Gilla hesitated for three days before daring to try it out. When he did, he found that it only went one place: straight to Lalochezia.
Zinc and Junella were mightily intrigued by this. Junella did some quick calculations with her finger-needle on the tablecloth. The market town would normally have been many miles out of their way, but if travel there was instantaneous, that was perfect. And it was close to Phlegmasia, which they needed to get to anyway. (Junella also noted that this way they could bypass "those goddamned Okononos.") They asked Gilla-Gilla where the tub was and he said he'd already set up a shrieker next to it. Better and better. He agreed to loan them the remote if they promised to bring it back on their return trip, and to pick up some groceries for him at the market. He and Zinc shook hands on this.
Gilla-Gilla demonstrated the remote for them. Pushing its single button resulted in a high-pitched squeal from somewhere far away in the forest, plainly audible right there at the table. It startled the hell out of a flock of trashbats. George said he'd have absolutely no trouble tracking it. Gilla also demonstrated that the dial on the side controlled the volume, so they wouldn't be repeatedly rupturing their eardrums as they got closer to the source.
When the decision was made that it was time to leave, Zinc and Gilla-Gilla exchanged manly hugs. Junella and Piffle both got a kiss on the cheek from the porcupine, although Piffle huffed a bit since she was still a teensy bit mad at him. George bowed, and the porcupine bowed back.
Toby shook Gilla's paw and admitted, "I don't know whether I wanna hug you or slug you." Gilla laughed that singular laugh of his and said that sounded fair. Toby told him that, even though the whole bloody experience was terrifying and had dredged up a lot of unsettling emotions, he didn't regret it. It had unlocked a part of himself he'd only been catching glimpses of throughout his trip. A part he'd been trying to pretend wasn't there. Now that he had looked it in the face, he had to decide what to do with it, and discover why it had kept itself hidden all this time.
As the travelers re-checked their gear (Toby remembered his bracers), Gilla-Gilla remembered something else. He rushed to one of his storage bins and came back with a bulging sack of meaty snacks. He presented it to them as a gift. Zinc took a bite and asked what it was from. The trees, Gilla explained. This was their bark, and it was so tough already that he didn't have to do much to make it into jerky. Junella guessed correctly that Gilla had mounds of the stuff and had gotten sick of it. So it wasn't so much a gift as they were doing him a favor by hauling it away. This, he admitted with a smirk, was 100% accurate.
Of course Gilla-Gilla had remembered to re-arm the outside security system, so once again they had to play follow the leader to avoid barbecuement. Around the back, the Fearsleigher was still parked and waiting. Zinc winced with his entire body as he realized they'd completely forgotten about her repairs.
Still, the old tank didn't need as much TLC as he'd expected. The convorines had scraped and dented it in places, but structurally it was sound as ever. Zinc even had to admit he was starting to dig the scratched-to-shit paintjob. Made it look tougher.
Gilla-Gilla disabled the flamethrowers for the backyard area and volunteered to pitch in with the repairs. He said Toby had earned a rest, but the mouse declined and helped out as much as anyone. Together they crawled around the car like worker ants, hammering and soldering, all to the lovely sounds of idiotic constructs getting themselves fricasseed.
George wondered aloud whether they could fix his harness, curious whether his days as a set of wheels were at an end. It took about an hour's worth of straightening, but eventually they had a presumably functional setup (that looked a lot uglier than it had in RB&WB's garage). Junella had stashed a few more transformation bottles in the hood, packed carefully in styrofoam, just in case. She smashed one on George's head and they all crossed their fingers. A few moments later, Gilla-Gilla was just about crapping his pants from the sight of a nightmare-powered Fearsleigher with a horse head hood ornament. George spun his wheels, enjoying the feel of their traction. He whickered happily.
Everyone said their last farewells and strapped themselves into their seats. Gilla-Gilla jumped up onto the hood like a ship's figurehead as the mighty machine rumbled fully to life and rolled towards the forest. Junella beeped the remote and the shrieker shrieked, letting George know where to go.
Gilla-Gilla ran across the length of the car and somersaulted off. As he waved goodbye, another cactusyote eyed him from the foliage.
It pounced.
Gilla barely turned his head as he pulled the hunting knife from his belt.
The cactusyote's lunge did all the work in gutting the beast from throat to crotch. Gilla-Gilla picked up a chunk and took a bite as his friends trundled off into the forest.
"Ears up, eyes open! Good luck!" he called out with his mouth full.
-***-